[Leica] Pan Pacific Swimming Championships -Victoria- Canada.

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Howdy Crew,
The Pan Pacific Swimming Championships are being held in my home town, 
Victoria , Canada. That means every country with a national swimming team on 
the Pacific Rim are here to challenge each other. A fantastic event if one 
is interested in the sport of swimming.

For many years covering Olympics and many other international events, 
swimming has always been a favourite of mine to cover. Not the easiest, but 
a challenge never the less, but I usually did not too bad.

However, this being the opening day of the Pan Pac events I have to confess 
the swimmers these days are so fast that when there face comes out for a 
breath of air turned in my direction with that moment to shoot! Damn they're 
going so fast that my usual "manual super fast focus" tricks are slower than 
an 89 year old grandpa! ;-)

Ok what the heck, so I'm only 77, but numbers don't mean anything, Right? 
;-) But these kids are flying through the water! ;-) OK, so I may be a 
slight bit slower! ;-)

Quite frankly this sport has evolved into an "auto-focus sport or forget 
it!" :-) And damn I was so fast with manual focus Leica glass for years with 
a 280mm or 400 mm lens I rarely got beat! :-) Oh I did on occasion, but not 
often! :-)

Every other news photographer there was..."DIGITAL!" And auto focus, period!

But dang these young swim folks are at least 150% faster then they were when 
I was a young lad back about '92 Summer Olympics! :-)

Today for the opening events in the morning and this evening I did get a few 
"good ones" but I'll not bore you with the numbers of "bad ones!" ;-) That's 
life in the "old folks-youth lanes!" ;-)

But here's one from this morning that wasn't too bad:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/The-Art-of-Observation/Japanese_swimmer

I'm about to edit a couple of hundred frames some from this evening's events 
and if you don't see any posted do not fret! That's life in the really 
really slow lane when you get over the hill!" ;-) When I should spend my 
time watching clouds form and grass grow! ;-)

Smart ass comments from the young guys now in their late fifties whom I was 
a sort of mentor to... "OK you can shoot the medal presentations because 
nobody is moving!" " The other situation you can shoot when the swimmer 
reaches the end of the race and they turn to look at the clock for their 
time." :-)

Then they all laugh at my expense. :-)

Oh there were a couple of unrepeatable ones! ;-) Indicating frailty of old 
age! :-)
Damn smarty ass young fellows! :-) But the one underlying thing with all 
this fooling around and comments is...  "the respect offered by them for my 
years and as a mentor!" One can't buy that kind of respect, so it means a 
great deal.

But dang these kids from all over the Pacific are extremely good... and 
without question, fast! :-) No it isn't I'm slower, be kind now I'm an elder 
citizen in the community! ;-) They are super fast in the water!

ted